Before a legislative committee Wednesday, Nebraska State Treasurer Don Stenberg accused the head of the Nebraska Investment Finance Authority of engaging in a "campaign of obstruction to conceal financial information."

In testimony prepared for the legislature's Government and Military an Veterans Affairs committee, Stenberg said Kenny and NIFA lawyers have made "excuse after excuse" for not providing data in accordance with Nebraska's Taxpayer Transparency Act.

The law, passed in 2009, requires all state spending and taxes to be available to the public, and readily searchable.

Stenberg was testifying in opposition to LB 437. It would permit NIFA and other independent instrumentalities to keep their data on a separate server, instead of transferring the data to another computer, while still maintaining standards set forth in the Tax payer Transparency Act.

NIFA provides low-interest financing for business and agricultural development, home ownership, and other enterprises to stimulate economic growth in Nebraska

Kenny told KETV Newswatch 7 NIFA he has no objection to providing the data, but he's seeking to bring "good data hygiene" to the process.

"We're trying to protect citizens and NIFA from phishing and ransomware attacks," said Kenny. "You have to exercise diligence when you post transaction data on the worldwide web."

Kenny said Stenberg had not provided NIFA with information about the computer security system where NIFA data would be stored. Therefore NIFA did not want to transfer data to a system where it could not identify security protocols.

"The protestor doth protest too much," said Kenny.

Stenberg said in his testimony that NIFA only needs to supply the data, purpose and recipient of each of NIFA's expenditures.

"I would estimate that Mr. Kenny has spent tens of thousands of dollars of NIFA's money on legal fees as part of his cover-up operations," wrote Stenberg in testimony provided to KETV NewsWatch 7.

Both men said they had numerous meetings over the past year working on resolving this issue.

"In my opinion, when a government bureaucrat fights this hard to prevent the disclosure of financial information, he is hiding something," said Stenberg.

Stenberg says he plans to seek a state audit review of NIFA, and will seek a public records request for NIFA's financial records. Stenberg also said he may ask the Attorney General to compel the release of NIFA documents, if they are not provided.

Kenny says he welcomes any review of NIFA data and invited Stenberg to review any of it.

"He can look at everything and anything," said Kenny. "We love auditors... We've been audited for 30-years."